History PonyPOVSeries / TropesQToZ

* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
** [[spoiler:After managing to save Minty from being deleted during the end of the G3 timeline, Pinkie celebrates...only for Minty to collapse and die from blood loss from an untreated wound.]]
** [[spoiler:Trixie has to disguise herself as a unicorn named Cobweb because she's aware someone wants her gone (''dead'' as it turns out). Once she finally removes her disguise to save Twilight, her friends are upset despite seeing why she did it and mistake her for a Changeling at first.]]
** [[spoiler:Majesty's OriginStory reveals the often overlooked implications of having animals [[UpliftedAnimal achieve sapience]] practically overnight in fiction, especially if they were previously domesticated like the ponies.]]
*** [[spoiler:Not only majority of civilisation refuses to accept their sapience, which will imply that they are now entitled to human rights, millennia of enforcing domestication isn't something that can be overturned in a short time without massive shifts in rights, meaning that it is much easier to simply go on as if nothing happened. The city of Redwall still treats their pegasi workforce as such, treating their ability to think and speak like an extra gimmick rather than sapience. On the bright side, this also means that there are also cities that recognise ponies as sapient beings like Vynciani as not everyone has the same way of thinking.]]
*** [[spoiler:Sapience alone isn't enough to uplift an animal. The ponies became a people in the first place because of input from domesticated ponies who escaped. Names, cotton candy, siblinghood and many other concepts have to be taught and enforced over time. Otherwise, their sapience will either be wasted on just simply making their wild lives easier or fade away over time and regress back to being feral animals.]]

** The biggest of the entire series may be that [[spoiler:Dark World is a [[StealthSequel Stealth Prequel]] to the rest of the series. At the end of it, Amicitia (Alicorn Twilight) sacrifices herself to create Shining Armor and the Interviewer's (who are revealed to be named Half-Light Dawn, Half-Light Noon, and Half-Light Dusk respectively), Shining acting as [[ForWantOfANail the nail to create the main timeline]].]]

---> '''Twilight''': From what Applejack told me about her redemption, Applebloom's ghost took a feather already on orders from their…Father, so it must be safe. And I'm not a murderer. That's why.

--> '''Pegasus Interviewer''': It's just a pun! [[LampshadeHanging Half the cities on the planet are named after puns, so deal with it!]]
* WorldSundering: The Wish Spell alters the entire world on a global scale, creating [[spoiler:the G3 World]]. Then after it's reversed, it goes wrong, triggering a WorldWreckingWave that alters the world and blows it back to the middle ages.

* SurpriseCreepy:
** [[spoiler:"gniteeM tsriF-First Meeting" is over all the same as Shining Armor's first story...then ends with some...''thing'' stalking Sweetie Belle in the middle of the night, erasing her hoof prints, before saying she's supposed to exist and vanishing into thin air.]]
** [[spoiler:Clover's Gaiden Story's first chapter involves Pinkie Pie discovering she was Clover's ImaginaryFriend brought to life by the world changing spell, resulting in a BreakTheCutie and her being DrivenToSuicide. While the others help her out of it, it's still surprisingly disturbing.]]

* TheoryTunnelvision: Nightmares have this ''by nature'' due to how they're created: they're consumed by a single aspect of themselves and desire to change the world to match up to how they believe it should be based on that. [[spoiler:Nightmare Eclipse took it UpToEleven: she believes Discord and his world are evil and ''must'' be destroyed, and nothing can ever change that. She's so this trope that unlike most Nightmares, when purified she ''still'' hung onto it to the point Eclipse Prime had to be absorbed by Twilight and rendered DeaderThanDead as a result to truly stop her for good.]]

** [[spoiler:''Six'' sets of Elements being used to defeat [[BigBad Nightmare Eclipse]] results in a ''[[UpToEleven timeline healing wave]]'' that heals all the damage she did to the timeline, including finally breaking her GroundhogDayLoop.]]

** The Elders have this UpToEleven: when viewed by a mortal they're so seemingly contradictory that most give up in confusion describing them. This is taken UpToEleven with the Draconequi Elders, who typically have [[BrownNote mind breaking effects on the unprotected mortal who views them.]]

** [[spoiler:Fluttercruel to Princess Luna, when Luna brings up the possibility that they really can't know who the "original" and who the "copy" is. Cruel' replies by saying that they're ''both'' real and it doesn't matter whose the "original". Luna is impressed by this.]]

** [[spoiler:Dark World!Fluttercruel's reaction to Discord being mortally wounded by Rancor is seems to get this reaction from the heroes despite everything she's done. Especially Applejack who actually KNOWS how she feels.]]

* [[ThatManIsDead That Mare Is Dead]]:

* [[spoiler:TrueFinalBoss: Discord...or so it seemed, it's actually Nightmare Nhilis.]]

** Pinkie Pie's RunningGag of stating her hatred of a [[Fanfic/{{Cupcakes}} certain fanfic]].

** Everything Princess [[spoiler:Gaia]] does, especially the [[spoiler:Everkind Forest]], might be a TakeThat to [[TastesLikeDiabetes certain other girls' cartoons]] about saccharine worlds where everyone is permanently happy and life is just a succession of parties. This is not only profoundly unrealistic and wrong, it's also extremely boring. Among other things, she has dolls in the likeness of the G3 My Little Ponies.

* TastesLikeDiabetes: InUniverse, this is Rainbow Dash's reaction to [[spoiler:the Everkind Forest.]]

* RantInducingSlight: Rarity during her Reharmonizing after her phobia of gems drives her over the edge, causing her to yell at Sweetie Belle and nearly seriously hurt her with a bit of diamond. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Rarity is suitably horrified when she comes to her senses.]]

** In the Dark World timeline, Discord's policy for dealing with ponies who betray someone else to him for personal gain is to blow up their crimes on a TV screen and tell the entirety of Ponyville exactly who betrayed who. He loves having Traitor Dash watch when he does this.

* WouldHurtAChild: Most of the villains don't show mercy on children, though [[spoiler:Nightmare Whisper]] is a major subversion. The CMC spend most of the Rumors Arc trying to ''survive'' while villains are [[AdultFear very much trying to kill them.]]

** [[spoiler:The Shadow of Chernobull ([[ParodySue General-Admiral Makarov's]] true form) is described as this. When Pandora first created it, [[BlackHoleSue it began warping the Realm of Legends to make all their stories focus on it]], forcing Pandora to [[SealedEvilInACan seal it in her Box]]. After escaping into the real world and becoming Makarov, he retains this, having altered history so the Hooviet Empire never imploded and doing such things as enabling his {{BFG}} to blow up ''clouds'', creating the Hooviets impossibly high tech weapons (such as his cyborgs), and [[ActuallyADoombot replacing himself with a robotic duplicate]] as he's being shot in the head.]]

* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech

* TheSmartGuy: [[spoiler: Gummy is apparently trying to ''mentally'' calculate the vector of the time-space convergence.]]

* ThoseTwoGuys: [[spoiler:Starsong and Toola-Roola's Shadows of Existence.]]

* ToCreateAPlaygroundForEvil

** Given the right motivation, ''anypony'' [[TookALevelInBadass can effectively become]] a badass. This is referenced by Princess Celestia, who points out ponies have a surprising ability to rise to the occasion when its required of them. [[spoiler:Apparently, this was one of the things her Mother, Fauna Luster, enjoyed rubbing in the face of Discord's Mother Entropy, who believed sentient life would inevitably destroy itself.]] Considering [[spoiler:the story is in canon with [[MyLittlePony G1 and G2]]]] in addition to the events of the series proper, this is little surprise.

** [[spoiker:This is basically what the world is turned into by the villain's endgame plans, turning it into a nonsensical, self-contridicting Grimdark mess.]]

** Later on in Dark World, Rarity has one against Fluttercruel after the latter tries to pull a NotSoDifferent on her when she declares she's going to kill Fluttercruel for [[spoiler: torturing Fluttershy's mind for centuries until Cadence's spirit saved her]].

*** [[spoiler:Her biggest and final one starts with Discord [[BackupFromOtherworld calling her from the afterlife using Anarchy's cellphone]] and telling her Havoc isn't going to ''let'' her overwrite Cruelty's Draconequusification, meaning he ''won'' by finally getting a loop where Fluttercruel ''lives'', and she's not getting her back. This results in Paradox blowing her top and screaming that Mad Tiara and Screwball are going to be her new targets...then [[OhCrap realizing Discord just distracted her from Twilight charging her final spell]]. She continues to fall apart as Twilight's spell [[GondorCallsForAid summons the]] [[CrisisCrossover G1, Tales, G3, and G4 (the pre-Discord versions) mane six]] to the present (reigniting the Princesses' Elements), putting her on the receiving end of ''six'' sets of Elements. Finally, her parents restrain her and she receives a BreakingLecture from Rota Fortuna that makes her realize she really ''has'' become NotSoDifferent from Discord. She goes ''catatonic'' from the shock, and by the time we last see her is reduced to little more than a broken shell of herself [[VillainsWantMercy begging Twilight not to]] [[KarmicDeath make her fuse with her]].]]

* RealityEnsues:
** [[spoiler:After managing to save Minty from being deleted during the end of the G3 timeline, Pinkie celebrates...only for Minty to collapse and die from blood loss from an untreated wound.]]
** [[spoiler:Trixie has to disguise herself as a unicorn named Cobweb because she's aware someone wants her gone (''dead'' as it turns out). Once she finally removes her disguise to save Twilight, her friends are upset despite seeing why she did it and mistake her for a Changeling at first.]]
** [[spoiler:Majesty's OriginStory reveals the often overlooked implications of having animals [[UpliftedAnimal achieve sapience]] practically overnight in fiction, especially if they were previously domesticated like the ponies.]]
*** [[spoiler:Not only majority of civilisation refuses to accept their sapience, which will imply that they are now entitled to human rights, millennia of enforcing domestication isn't something that can be overturned in a short time without massive shifts in rights, meaning that it is much easier to simply go on as if nothing happened. The city of Redwall still treats their pegasi workforce as such, treating their ability to think and speak like an extra gimmick rather than sapience. On the bright side, this also means that there are also cities that recognise ponies as sapient beings like Vynciani as not everyone has the same way of thinking.]]
*** [[spoiler:Sapience alone isn't enough to uplift an animal. The ponies became a people in the first place because of input from domesticated ponies who escaped. Names, cotton candy, siblinghood and many other concepts have to be taught and enforced over time. Otherwise, their sapience will either be wasted on just simply making their wild lives easier or fade away over time and regress back to being feral animals.]]

* TheManInFrontOfTheMan: The Valeyard to Dark World Discord, General Lone Ranger to Queen Chrysalis, both THINK they're this... in reality they're both just {Big Bad Wannabee}}s.
* ThemeTuneCameo:
** The mane cast and [[spoiler:[[SixthRanger Trixie]]]] sing the show's theme song in the penultimate episode during a party celebrating Trixie's recovery and HeelFaceTurn. Considering it was chosen by Pinkie Pie, this makes perfect sense.
** Princess Celestia sings the G1 ''MyLittlePony'' theme song [[spoiler:to break Gaia's brainwashing on the foals that were once Ponyville.]]

** [[spoiler: The foal inside Nightmare Whisper's heart (who had been angry, but relatively self assured before that) throws a major temper tantrum once the mane cast give their group WorldOfCardboardSpeech, screaming her head off at them to shut up over and over again.]]

* WorldOfCardboardSpeech:
** [[spoiler:Twilight has one after Fluttercruel makes her realize Fluttershy's motivation for becoming Princess Gaia/Nightmare Whisper, breaking her out of her mental block that'd plagued her the entire battle. This also activates the Element of Magic ''without'' the crown she normally needs. The others follow suit, activiating their own Elements with their own {{World Of Cardboard Speech}}s and finishing with Fluttercruel earning her Cutie Mark and realizing what it, and Fluttershy's, ''really'' mean, giving a speech of her own and summoning the Element Of Kindness.]]
** In Part six of Dark World: Twilight gives one as she completes her HeelFaceTurn.
---> '''Twilight''': I leave behind Tragedy, Master's tool, I leave behind Sparkle, Discord's toy, I am simply Twilight The Unicorn. I am me. I have magic to do and tragedies to face. I'm done hiding in the cage I've made for myself and those around me...I'm finally free. And I have some friends to make.
** As do Dark World!Applejack and Rarity when its their turn to pull a HeelFaceTurn. Spike also gives one later when awakening as an Element of Generosity. Rainbow likewise gets one later after finally repairing her soul.
** Dark World!Rainbow Dash Gets another one when she [[spoiler:overcomes her fear of her [[SuperMode Ender Dash]] form and use every ounce of her power to save her friends. She promptly uses said power to ''fly the Princesses into outer space'' so they can recharge directly from the sun and moon.]]
---> '''Rainbow Dash''': No, I'm not going to give up! I can't...[[spoiler:Pinkie, Fluttershy]]...Scootaloo...[[spoiler:Derpy's filly…]]I can't...I can't lose anypony else! "I'm not letting Twilight and the others alone…nothing's stopping me! Not bucking physics, not some [[spoiler:'Alicorn Witch']]...and not me..." I said, thinking of why I was so scared of using every ounce of my power. I didn't want to hurt anyone, didn't want to KILL someone...But if I didn't, my friends were going to DIE. And I was MORE afraid of that! [[spoiler:I let the Princesses go and got some distance, [[SuperMode letting the power explode.]] I erupted in red energy and rainbow lightning. I was Ender Dash...and I felt different than before]]...I didn't feel cold inside...I just felt...free. Free to use this power for whatever I needed to. "Grab on! We're going to give this story a happy ending if it kills us!"
** Bright Eyes gives one when she realizes that [[spoiler:she's fighting [[BigBad Cruel Eyes/D___t's Shadow]] in her own mind and has been stupid letting ''him'' make the rules]] and is able to overcome the fear he's been causing her the entire time. [[spoiler:She promptly uses the control over her mind this gives to reconfigure her weapon and give her the opening needed to finish him off.]]
---> '''Bright Eyes''': And I'm an idiot! I've been letting YOU set the rules and what goes and what doesn't here. You've had me so caught up in this mess I hadn't thought this through! [[spoiler:[[BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind This is all in MY head? MY mind? MY soul? That means I can do anything I WANT!]]]] And I've always had with me the lance that pierces the darkness! [[NotAfraidOfYouAnymore And now that I've realized that, I've got no reason to be afraid of you anymore!]]
** Dark World!Twilight gives one in 'That Which Pierces All' after [[spoiler:hijacking Paradox's time travel spell and combining it with her connection to Minty Pie, summoning the [[CrisisCrossover G1, G2, G3, and G4 Mane Casts]] to the present.]]
---> '''Twilight''': [[spoiler:You have power over time? The magic between friends transcends time, space, reality, death, beyond all barriers! Friendship doesn't just pierce the barrier between life and death, but all barriers, everywhere! This is a friendship that pierces the walls between worlds! We've been made, unmade, and remade, but the links we've forged between our souls are all still here! You have six Elements of Harmony that are absolute? We have six sets of hearts beating together in harmony! You have a gallery of Nightmares? We have a herd of FRIENDS! I'm not scared. Not with all of you by my side. And neither are they scared by my side!]]
* WorldOfChaos:
** [[BadFuture Dark World]], being Discord's VillainWorld, is naturally this.
** [[spoiler:The Rumors altered world is this, being so chaotic due to so many contradictory rumors existing all at once that multiple, mutually exclusive things are true all at once.]]